Window status bar turns to white sometimes

[shangsunset]

When theres some activity in that window or when the notification bell rings, the color of the window status bar turns to white. Switching to that window would make it go back to normal.

This is iTerm2.

[cole-h]

Try adding this to your .tmux.conf:

setw -g window-status-activity-attr none

Now, only the # will be shown when a window updates. This is because the default window-status-activity-attr is reverse (see: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/120905). Another option mentioned in that answer is changing window-status-activity-fg and window-status-activity-bg.

EDIT: Apparently, this might not work in tmux 3.1b or later. See below comment for a workaround for that version: https://github.com/arcticicestudio/nord-tmux/issues/28#issuecomment-715909527.

[shangsunset]

Thanks for your help. 👍 Though, the theme shouldn't make the status rectangle.

[cole-h]

Hopefully this can be fixed in the theme itself in the future. Also, be aware the "bell" status has a reverse attr as well, so modify that as well (I'm too lazy and haven't run into it all that often, so I don't know exactly what you would need to add to your config).

[yangxyo]

The color of the window status bar still turns to white., when I turn iterm2 to a half screen, but in full screen it display normal. It may the width overflowed.

[yangxyo]

Seems conflict with:

set -g monitor-activity on

monitor-activity [on | off]
Monitor for activity in the window. Windows with activity are highlighted in the status line.

Just turn it off to resolve this issue. But can I just turn it off? It will affect other things?

[arcticicestudio]

Like @cole-h and @yangxyo said this is a feature of tmux and by design. Maybe we can improve the style of the highlighting to something more "decent", but this way the style makes sure to draw the attention of the user and and also simply be disabled when not wanted at all.

@shangsunset Can you please try the mentioned settings to check if this removed the highlighting?

[lockejan]

Try adding this to your .tmux.conf:

setw -g window-status-activity-attr none

Now, only the # will be shown when a window updates. This is because the default window-status-activity-attr is reverse (see: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/120905). Another option mentioned in that answer is changing window-status-activity-fg and window-status-activity-bg.

This option isn't valid anymore, at least for tmux 3.1b . Instead one can use setw -g window-status-activity-style none to get rid of the design breaking notification alert. A # will still be displayed next to the window title to indicate some activity.

[trevarj]

I believe window-status-bell-style won't work correctly with the overrides that the nord theme does, namely the powerline characters. It seems that the bell style will get immediately overwritten if you try to set it to something other than the default (reverse - the ugly white background).

However, a config that doesn't add styling to the format works:

set -g window-status-format " #I │ #W #F "
set -g window-status-current-format " #I │ #W  "
set -g window-status-style "fg=white,bg=brightblack"
set -g window-status-current-style "fg=brightblack,bg=cyan"
set -g window-status-bell-style "fg=brightblack,bg=#d08770"
set -g window-status-separator " "